May 13, 2007

"Our Oversight Committees"

by emptywheel

Ut oh, now DCI Michael Hayden has joined Condi in making Henry Waxman cross.

You see, in response to two requests from the Government Reform Committee...

Ranking Minority Member Tom Davis sent you a letter requesting the declassification of a February 12, 2002, memorandum from Ms. Wilson to the Deputy Chief of the Counterterrorism Policy Division (CPD) in which Ms. Wilson described the qualifications of her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding mission to Niger relating... to Iraq's purported attempt to obtain uranium.

[snip]

According to Ms. Wilson's testimony, information provided to the Senate by this CPD reports officer was "twisted and distorted" to support the inaccurate claim that Ms. Wilson had suggested her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for the mission." Ms. told the Committee that the CPD reports officer drafted a memo to correct the record, but the CIA did not allow him to send it. ... Chairman Waxman requested the CPD reports officer's memorandum and any other records concerning Ms. Wilson's role in Ambassador Wilson's trip.

... General Hayden basically got a flunkie to respond that the House and Senate intelligence committees are "our oversight Committees," so Waxman (and Davis) should just fuck off.

How nice, having your very own oversight committees. Particularly seeing as how even Dick Durbin claims he was unable to exercise effective oversight over the crap the intelligence agencies pulled before the war.

In response, Waxman gets all particular on Hayden and his flunkie Mr. Walker. You see, Waxman concedes that House Rule X clause (3)(m) gives the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence review over the "sources and methods" of intelligence agencies.

In this case, however, the Oversight Committee is not seeking to conduct oversight over the "sources and methods" of intelligence agencies. Rather, it is seeking to asses (1) whether there is any truth to the allegations that Ms. Wilson showed favoritism toward Ambassador Wilson and (2) whether the CIA interfered with the efforts of a federal employee to communicate with a congressional committee to correct distortions of the employee's statements.

And then Waxman waggles a subpoena before General Hayden's eyes. Due date, May 18. Just in case you're holding your breath that the CIA will be any more responsive than Condi was.

When are we going to have a general law which ties continued funding to responsiveness to oversight? Yes, I know, very difficult to achieve in practice. So how about this: if an oversight committee gets pissed off, they can invoke a cutoff of payments (salary, benefits and accrued time on the job) to political appointees serving under the non-complying appointee. The higher body can reverse the effect by majority vote at any time, or set some penalty in the number of days to sustain the cutoff. Somehow, I get the feeling that a lot of these repub bureaucrats actually count pennies, making them not ideological at all. So Congress could just specify that in order to get paid, you have to be responsive to what we consider to be oversight. Even if you have some rich dude as the department head, if you cut funds to all the lower level sponge-bobs, they might get upset pretty fast.

Should I be getting the impression that Hayden wants us-the-public to assume that MS Wilson sent the Ambassador to Niger? Because that's what it sounds like the criminals-and-incompetents in DC want. (Not going there, thankyouverymuch. And while you're ignoring subpoenas, people, you're adding to the pressure to kick all of you out of office and throw you into a far less comfortable prison.)

Well. I am shocked to say that if you read read the "clause 11 (b)(1)(a)" referenced in House Rule X(3)(m) as cited by EW, Hayden has a better argument than I would have thought. Waxman should have the head of the House Helect Intel Committee, Sylvester Reyes, co-sign a followup letter to remove any validity of this dodge.

All of these hearings will be drug out as long as the administration can drag them. I expect that each and every one of the principle targets will have to be hauled kicking and screaming into the Congressional hot seat, only to obfuscate and forget and kinda-sorta-half-assed lie to the committee, daring them to go through the whole dog and pony show once more, or twice more, or in the case of AGAG, many multiple times. And daring Waxman to DO something about the lies. Go ahead, Congressman, Make My Day.

Except Condi, who of course is too busy hitting the Sunday TeeVee shows, running off to Syria to try and make herself look as statesmanlike as Madam Speaker, and I'm sure there's a shoe sale somewhere...

What are we going to do about oversight that is not oversight? Eight people tossed into a room and gagged is not oversight for the actual intelligence of war. IANAL but I think that if these Congress folk had broken silence, they could have be prosecuted as traitors. Seriously. In time of war. The trial would have been secret because of national security, leaving no public insight into the matter. So what is a gagged Congress person to do? Rockefeller wrote a letter to himself. That was pretty weak tea in the face of the matter, sending the armed services and the treasury after lies. Maybe a Congressperson has to figure that the tree of liberty needs to be fed blood every so often.

The Bush folk denied the OPR department security clearances, so they could not investigate. Could one go to a FISA judge to get an injuction to stop lies being fed to the American people?

Fed obvious lies and gagged, if I were a Congressperson, i think I would have started acting strangely. As an agnostic, I would have started attending church maybe twice a day, and started seeking out the best people in the ethics profession, as publicly as possible, to draw attention to a crisis. That might not have worked. What are the remedies?